International parliaments are on the rise. An increasing number of international organizations establishes 'international parliamentary institutions' or IPIs, which bring together members of national parliaments or - in rare cases - elected representatives of member state citizens. Yet, IPIs have generally remained powerless institutions with at best a consultative role in the decision-making process of international organizations. Why do the member states of international organizations create IPIs but do not vest them with relevant institutional powers? This study argues that neither the functional benefits of delegation nor the internalization of democratic norms answer this question convincingly. Rather, IPIs are best understood as an instrument of strategic legitimation. By establishing institutions that mimic national parliaments, governments seek to ensure that audiences at home and in the wider international environment recognize their international organizations as democratically legitimate. At the same time, they seek to avoid being effectively constrained by IPIs in international governance. The Rise of International Parliaments provides a systematic study of the establishment and empowerment of IPIs based on a novel dataset. In a statistical analysis covering the world's most relevant international organizations and a series of case studies from all major world regions, we find two varieties of international parliamentarization. International organizations with general purpose and high authority create and empower IPIs to legitimate their region-building projects domestically. Alternatively, the establishment of IPIs is induced by the international diffusion of democratic norms and prominent templates, above all that of the European Parliament. Transformations in Governance is a major academic book series from Oxford University Press. It is designed to accommodate the impressive growth of research in comparative politics, international relations, public policy, federalism, and environmental and urban studies concerned with the dispersion of authority from central states to supranational institutions, subnational governments, and public-private networks. It brings together work that advances our understanding of the organization, causes, and consequences of multilevel and complex governance. The series is selective, containing annually a small number of books of exceptionally high quality by leading and emerging scholars. The series is edited by Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Walter Mattli of the University of Oxford.

Leaders without Partisans examines the changing impact of party leader evaluations on voters' behavior in parliamentary elections. The decline of traditional social cleavages, the pervasive mediatization of the political scene, and the media's growing tendency to portray politics in "personalistic" terms all led to the hypothesis that leaders matter more for the way individuals vote and, often, the way elections turn out. This study offers the most comprehensive longitudinal assessment of this hypothesis so far. The authors develop a composite theoretical framework - based on currently disconnected strands of research from party, media, and electoral studies - and test it empirically on the most encompassing set of national election study datasets ever assembled. The labor-intensive harmonization effort produces an unprecedented dataset pooling information for a total of 129 parliamentary elections conducted between 1961 and 2018 in 14 West European countries. The book provides evidence of the longitudinal growth in leader effects on vote choice and on turnout. The process of partisan dealignment and changes in the structure of mass communication in Western societies are identified as the main drivers of personalization in voting behavior.

This thought-provoking collection of essays analyses the complex, multi-faceted, and even contradictory nature of Stalinism and its representations. Stalinism was an extraordinarily repressive and violent political model, and yet it was led by ideologues committed to a vision of socialism and international harmony. The essays in this volume stress the complex, multi-faceted, and often contradictory nature of Stalin, Stalinism, and Stalinist-style leadership, and. explore the complex picture that emerges. Broadly speaking, three important areas of debate are examined, united by a focus on political leadership: * The key controversies surrounding Stalin's leadership role * A reconsideration of Stalin and the Cold War * New perspectives on the cult of personality Revisioning Stalin and Stalinism is a crucial volume for all students and scholars of Stalin's Russia and Cold War Europe.

At factory gates and cottage doors, co-operative guilds and trade union branches, the radical suffragists of turn-of-the-century Britain took their message to women at the grassroots level in order to advance demands for equal pay, educational opportunities, better birth control, child allowances, and the right to work. Their strength lay in their democratic approach: opposed to violence, they felt that the vote was the key to wider rights for women.

One Hand Tied Behind Us draws from a wealth of unpublished material, local newspaper accounts. diaries, handwritten minute books, forgotten biographies, and interviews. It creates a vivid and moving portrait of the women who, almost 100 years ago, envisaged freedoms that are not secure even today. Widely acclaimed, it has become a suffrage classic, and to mark its twenty-first anniversary, Rivers Oram presents this revised edition with a new introduction by Jill Liddington.

In the crucible of the 2017 general election, a small group of progressive activists set about trying to change British political life for the better. Armed with the conviction that the old politics was irretrievably broken, the progressive alliance set itself the task of breaching the walls of Britain's tribal political culture. Over the seven weeks of the campaign, even as the struggle between Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn built up to a stunning and utterly unexpected climax, the progressive alliance fought its own battle. Its aim was to bridge divides, start conversations and forge alliances on the ground between progressives - socialists, social democrats, liberals, Greens, Welsh and Scottish nationalists - working together against their common foe instead of competing self-destructively against one another. Based on first-hand testimony, All Together Now tells the dramatic story of how the progressive alliance helped shape the story of the 2017 election - and why its aims, its methods and above all its values will shape the future of 21st century politics.

On July 6, 2003, four months after the United States invaded Iraq, former ambassador Joseph Wilson's now historic op-ed, "What I Didn't Find in Africa," appeared in "The New York Times." A week later, conservative pundit Robert Novak revealed in his newspaper column that Ambassador Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, was a CIA operative. The public disclosure of that secret information spurred a federal investigation and led to the trial and conviction of Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Scooter Libby, and the Wilsons' civil suit against top officials of the Bush administration. Much has been written about the "Valerie Plame" story, but Valerie herself has been silent, until now. Some of what has been reported about her has been frighteningly accurate, serving as a pungent reminder to the Wilsons that their lives are no longer private. And some has been completely false -- distorted characterizations of Valerie and her husband and their shared integrity.

Valerie Wilson retired from the CIA in January 2006, and now, not only as a citizen but as a wife and mother, the daughter of an Air Force colonel, and the sister of a U.S. marine, she sets the record straight, providing an extraordinary account of her training and experiences, and answers many questions that have been asked about her covert status, her responsibilities, and her life. As readers will see, the CIA still deems much of the detail of Valerie's story to be classified. As a service to readers, an afterword by national security reporter Laura Rozen provides a context for Valerie's own story.

"Fair Game" is the historic and unvarnished account of the personal and international consequences of speaking truth to power.

Ministers, Minders and Mandarins brings together the leading academics in this specialty to rigorously assess the impact and consequences of political advisers in parliamentary democracies. The ten contemporary and original case studies focus on issues of tension, trust and tradition, and are written in an accessible and engaging style. Using new empirical findings and theory from a range of public policy canons, the authors analyze advisers' functions, their differing levels of accountability and issues of diversity between governments. Cases include research on the tensions in the UK, the possible unease in Swedish government offices and the role of trust in Greece. Established operations in Australia, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand are compared to relative latecomers to advisory roles, such as Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark. A key comparative work in the field, this book encourages further research into the varied roles of political advisers. Offering an excellent introduction to the complex role political advisers play, this book will be of great interest to upper undergraduate and postgraduate students studying political science and policy administration, as well as researchers and scholars in public policy. Contributors include: A. Blick, P.M. Christiansen, B. Connaughton J. Craft, C. Eichbaum, T. Gouglas, H. Houlberg Salomonsen, T. Hustedt, M. Maley, P. Munk Christiansen, B. Niklasson, P. Ohberg, R. Shaw, C. van den Berg

China's growth as a major international superpower means that it is now more important than ever to understand how its politics work. Rejecting familiar discussions of China cast in terms of traditional culture, contemporary economic power or shifting official ideologies, this forward thinking work instead analyses the historically contingent mix of agents, ideas and institutions that make up the country's political life. This approach allows Sabrina Ching Yuen Luk and Peter W. Preston to pragmatically unpack the logic of contemporary politics in China. They trace the construction of the party-state system, note some of its major re-orientations and consider its present condition. The book also covers a range of hot policy topics including: internet sovereignty; the One Belt, One Road initiative; the South China Sea issue and the problems of the elderly empty nesters and left-behind children. Offering a detailed yet concise treatment of key social policy areas and other complex issues, this book will serve a broad audience of students, researchers and professionals, irrespective of discipline, along with all those with an interest in China or Chinese politics.

Policy Analysis in the United States brings together contributions from some of the world's leading scholars and practitioners of public policy analysis including Beryl Radin, David Weimer, Rebecca Maynard, Laurence Lynn, and Guy Peters. This volume represents an indispensable companion to other volumes in the International Library of Policy Analysis series, enabling scholars to compare cross-nationally concepts and practices of public policy analysis in the media, sub-national governments, and many more institutional settings. The volume represents an invaluable contribution to public policy analysis and can be used widely in teaching at both graduate and undergraduate levels in schools of public affairs and public policy as well as in comparative politics and policy.

In 1787. . .
We were given the right to practice the religion of our choice.
We were given the right to say what we wanted without persecution.
It was written that our house and property were secure from unreasonable search and seizure. We were given the right to a public trial.
Fifty-five men we will never know sat in a sweltering room and fought for us.
We were given our rights as citizens of the United States.
Every second fall, as we return again to the ballot box to decide the course of our country's leadership, every voter must find their way back to that room in Philadelphia. Welcome Books is proud to provide a map.
The Constitution of the United States of America, inscribed and illustrated by the master calligrapher, Sam Fink, brings to life the issues underlying the triumphs of this abiding document. Originally published in pen and ink for Random House in 1987, Mr. Fink has gone back to his original black-and-white art and painted it anew, created a full-color masterpiece. The result is glorious. Each amendment, each article, each word so thoughtfully placed in The Constitution has been given Mr. Fink's profound touch. With a powerful intelligence and a wonderful sense of humor, he has provided us with an entry point into this complex document, allowing us to read it with greater ease and understanding.
As well as a trade edition, Welcome Books is honored to present a full-color limited edition of 64 loose folios, each 15" x 22," exquisitely designed and produced--matching in its manufacture the stunning quality of Mr. Fink's ambition and the gravitas of the original document.
In 1787, we were entrusted with our most important living document, The Constitution of the United States of America. Have we kept it safe? To answer this, we must begin by reading it, each and every one of us--so that we may claim our own intimate knowledge of its content; so that we may never forget its tenets; so that we may remember the kind of world we want to live in. This, Sam Fink, in his direct and unadorned way, respectful and loving, helps us do.